Antonio Villaraigosa: Overkill Mayor of the World

• Well said, I could not agree more with you on this issue. I think your blog is very popular on this topic judging by all the other comments posted to it. I just wanted to leave a comment to appreciate your hard work.

• Just want to tell you that your site content is interesting, but you must improve site graphics

• And when does he leave office. the sooner he leaves the better the city will be ....take bernard parks with you

• how my mayor could be one of the greatest mayor of the word would u help me because i live in one of the greatest city in the word that is one of the metropolisian city. i send this message for u from iran mashhad thanks for your help

• P.S. If I may just bolster my point a bit: take a look at the essay I wrote the other day about how the "public interest group" that paid for posters calling the Mayor "successful" just happens to have the same staff as his political campaign consultants. Visit: http://WalterMooreSays.com

• Patrick -- There's a single word, a perfect word, that sums up and explains why Villaraigosa needs to portray the city of which he is Mayor as the Center of the Universe: "megalomania."

• Hi Steve, You bring up a good point, and something I wanted to recommend. If any readers know of other "capital of the world" remarks the mayor has made over the years, please let us know in this comments section. Thanks, Patrick

• The Mayor and Nunez should get together and aske themselves how they, as prominent latinos, could blow it so badly for their 'community'. I mean, wasn't the whole idea to get more and more hispanics into politically influential positions?

• LA is also the "sleazeball capital of the world" and there was nothing sleazier than the Mayor caught in an affair with Mirthala Salinas..

• Richard is clearly some sort of shill for that big lummox Trutanich, trying to spin any hyperbolic shortcoming or "failure" to rise to his claims the mayor may have, as some sort of thanks to that idiot Trutanich. Who has NOT cut the amount paid out in outside fees OR in claims. Just two weeks ago, 2 firefighters including Frank Lima, who's on the LAFD's current negotiating team against the city, were awarded a cool $8 million from a jury for alleged discrimination -- not a peep on that from Trutanich, who's sucking up to the LAFD's union head McOsker in a game of politcian one upsmanship vs. the Mayor and city hall who ARE for once doing their job and fidiciary duty in balancing the budget with public safety. SAME game he's playing on behalf of the PPL and its Republican head Paul Weber, who threw lots of money toward electing and owning him. (The PPL's "political advisor" is Don Lovey, fresh from heading the Prison Guards' Union, which has contributing significantly to bankrupting the State Prison Budget, and resulting in the prospective controversial release of prisoners. Even a conservativ radio ranter like Doug McIntyre firmly blames the union as a big part of our problems.) Of course Zine, Cooley, and Lee Baca all benefit from this same game and that's why they pushed to elect a total incompetent like Trutanich: they control him like a puppet, especially Cooley and the PPL. The City Attorney's office continues to use outside firms, but sadly and true to form "Tru" Trutanich has lied about it, for example in his interview a few days ago with Larry Mantle on KPCC. In a comment on Mantle's blog, Peter Scolney, one of the lawyers for the plaintiff, points out that Trutanich lied when he took credit for getting a case dismissed (it was some temp technicality) AND that he lied about doing the work in-house when in fact, an outside firm has been paid $1.4 million so far. Trutanich has predictably invited 2 class- action large lawsuits on his idiotic new injunction making it illegal for "suspected" taggers to congregate (in violation of the constitutional right to associate when you haven't done anything wrong, and profiling) AND he's invited a class-action lawsuit from marijuana patients' advocate groups and pot shops by declaring ALL MJ shops in LA illegal all of a sudden (just as the Obama admin. announced in Feb. it would no longer have the DEA bust Calif. shops, accepting state law as precedent over fed law). But AFTER promising the MJ advocates he'd uphold state law NO MATTER what to get their election endorsement. JUST AS HE DID with Laura Chick, but now using a mere $150,000 fee to her attorneys as a "smokescreen" as she puts it, to hide his outright "lies and demagoguery" to get her endorsement. Trutanich's promises to cut litigation costs by doing more in-house are totally contingent upon his HIRING 50 more legal specialists to take on these jobs, along with support staff, BUT even as the CA's ofc is $6.5 MILLION IN RED EVERY MONTH ON PAYROLL ALONE right now. (He ALSO wants to ADD 200 private cops answerable to him alone "with cars and everything" as he told Daily News and Times back in May -- WitnessLA.com also ran a thread on it.) When he admitted this to the LAT Editorial board in their tea/ chat recently (Opinion Online has a video link to the whole interview), only one female staffer had the cajones to ask him to explain HOW the numbers on "savings" added up, and he tried to deflect and genuflect, never giving her an answer after several tries. IF any REAL reporters like Patrick Range McDonald here have any cajones to follow up and do the math, maybe they could do something other than attack this mayor as an easy target. MAYBE McDonald could do something useful?

• Richard is clearly some sort of shill for that big lummox Trutanich, trying to spin any hyperbolic shortcoming or "failure" to rise to his claims the mayor may have, as some sort of thanks to that idiot Trutanich. Who has NOT cut the amount paid out in outside fees OR in claims. Just two weeks ago, 2 firefighters including Frank Lima, who's on the LAFD's current negotiating team against the city, were awarded a cool $8 million from a jury for alleged discrimination -- not a peep on that from Trutanich, who's sucking up to the LAFD's union head McOsker in a game of politcian one upsmanship vs. the Mayor and city hall who ARE for once doing their job and fidiciary duty in balancing the budget with public safety. SAME game he's playing on behalf of the PPL and its Republican head Paul Weber, who threw lots of money toward electing and owning him. (The PPL's "political advisor" is Don Lovey, fresh from heading the Prison Guards' Union, which has contributing significantly to bankrupting the State Prison Budget, and resulting in the prospective controversial release of prisoners. Even a conservativ radio ranter like Doug McIntyre firmly blames the union as a big part of our problems.) Of course Zine, Cooley, and Lee Baca all benefit from this same game and that's why they pushed to elect a total incompetent like Trutanich: they control him like a puppet, especially Cooley and the PPL. The City Attorney's office continues to use outside firms, but sadly and true to form "Tru" Trutanich has lied about it, for example in his interview a few days ago with Larry Mantle on KPCC. In a comment on Mantle's blog, Peter Scolney, one of the lawyers for the plaintiff, points out that Trutanich lied when he took credit for getting a case dismissed (it was some temp technicality) AND that he lied about doing the work in-house when in fact, an outside firm has been paid $1.4 million so far. Trutanich has predictably invited 2 class- action large lawsuits on his idiotic new injunction making it illegal for "suspected" taggers to congregate (in violation of the constitutional right to associate when you haven't done anything wrong, and profiling) AND he's invited a class-action lawsuit from marijuana patients' advocate groups and pot shops by declaring ALL MJ shops in LA illegal all of a sudden (just as the Obama admin. announced in Feb. it would no longer have the DEA bust Calif. shops, accepting state law as precedent over fed law). But AFTER promising the MJ advocates he'd uphold state law NO MATTER what to get their election endorsement. JUST AS HE DID with Laura Chick, but now using a mere $150,000 fee to her attorneys as a "smokescreen" as she puts it, to hide his outright "lies and demagoguery" to get her endorsement. Trutanich's promises to cut litigation costs by doing more in-house are totally contingent upon his HIRING 50 more legal specialists to take on these jobs, along with support staff, BUT even as the CA's ofc is $6.5 MILLION IN RED EVERY MONTH ON PAYROLL ALONE right now. (He ALSO wants to ADD 200 private cops answerable to him alone "with cars and everything" as he told Daily News and Times back in May -- WitnessLA.com also ran a thread on it.) When he admitted this to the LAT Editorial board in their tea/ chat recently (Opinion Online has a video link to the whole interview), only one female staffer had the cajones to ask him to explain HOW the numbers on "savings" added up, and he tried to deflect and genuflect, never giving her an answer after several tries. IF any REAL reporters like Patrick Range McDonald here have any cajones to follow up and do the math, maybe they could do something other than attack this mayor as an easy target. MAYBE McDonald could do something useful?

• You forgot in his initial mayoral campaign, he promised to make LA,"the most dog-friendly" city in the nation. Judging from crap on the sidewalk, I think he accomplished that one.

• The Mayor of Failure's hyperbole is not only becoming utterly predictable, but it is also entirely lacking in credibility. The Mayor of Failure is desperately clinging to those old cliches "Fake it 'till you make it," and "Perception is reality." But you have to wonder how much longer the Mayor of Failure's grasp will hold. Many of his senior staffers are bailing out before the you-know-what hits the fan. One of Mayor of Failure's biggest failures was not getting Jack Weiss elected despite all the money and endorsements that backroom promises could buy. The Mayor of Failure's political machine failed, and with that failure went many of those who drank the Koolaide. Perhaps the Mayor of Failure pushed the envelope too far with a candidate like Weiss who was considered a shoe in by many insiders, including Weiss himself. However, the Mayor of Failure and Chief Bratton were wrong. Without a 'friendly' in the City Attorney's Office, the Mayor of Failure has another failure looming; the truth about the mismanagement of the City can no longer be managed and suppressed. Political outsider and novice Carmen Trutanich has upset the Mayor of Failure by slashing the amount of money that the Mayor paid to private law firms to do the work of the City, and now that the gravy train has stopped, most of those law firms are wondering whether all the money they threw at the Mayor of Failure was worthwhile. Without their support, how long can the Mayor of Failure last?

• Raiding pension plans. Deferring maitenance. Selling bonds to pay operating expenses. Sounds like a con artist.

• Great article. Right on! Los Angeles, a Capital among Capitals! Unfortunately, it's too true - homelessness, congestion, air pollution, unemployment, lethargy, benign neglect, bureaucratic malpractice... I think I hear drums in the distance!

• The fact that the world recognizes us as the Hyperbole Capital of the World means that most of this can be safely ignored.

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